It is often necessary in modern warfare to provide a battlefield repair to damaged armour plate of armour vehicles. Once an armour plate has received damage, it becomes a focus for subsequent attacks as the area may already be perforated or certainly weakened. It is important to be able to complete a battlefield repair in a simple and effective manner even if the repair is essentially temporary, until the armour panel can be replaced or repaired in a more permanent manner.
It is certainly known to weld repair patches to metallic armour panels, however, this requires specialized equipment and skill that is not normally available on the battlefield. The process is also time consuming and has not proven particularly effective. This process is also not applicable to composite armour systems or vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,549 discloses a method to attach a repair patch to an armour plate by securing of a series of specialized hollow cylinder elements that can be welded to the armour plate by means of an oxygen lance. Once these cylinders have been appropriately attached to the plate, they provide a suitable means for mechanically securing of an armour repair patch to the armour plate. Basically, the armour repair patch has a series of ports and these cylinders in the preferred embodiment pass through the ports in the repair patch. The cylinders include a threaded portion on the exterior thereof and thus, the repair patch can be mechanically fastened to the armour plate by a nut and bolt type connection.
This patent also discloses an arrangement for providing a temporary weld of the armour plate to the vehicle.
The system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,549 is directed to battlefield repair of armour plate, however, this system still requires specialized equipment and skill to complete the battlefield repair. This repair would also be somewhat time consuming and could not be used to repair a composite armour panel or vehicle.
The present invention provides a convenient simplified approach for repair of damaged armour plate that can be carried out quickly and without specialized skill. This armour plate can be part of or additional panels carried by an armour vehicle.